1. Introduction
This document forms part of our Disclosures on Management Approach (DMA) series, prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative’s G4 Guidelines. The DMA series is designed to support and complement our annual corporate reporting by providing a detailed overview of our approach to managing key sustainability issues of significance to our business, our industry and our stakeholders (see Appendix A). The series will be reviewed annually, with performance updates and progress against targets disclosed each year as part of our sustainability reporting process.
2. Human Capital Development
Human capital development is an important part of our people strategy and underpins our strategic focus on people and leadership capabilities. Developing our employees’ capabilities enables them to deliver on our strategy and purpose, drive continuous improvement and enhances performance. It also supports other elements of our broader people strategy, such as diversity and inclusion, employee engagement and the attraction and retention of talent.
By developing the knowledge, skills, competencies and attributes of our employees and fostering their creativity and innovation, we enhance their passion and potential to deliver high quality performance outcomes, both for themselves and for the business.
We acknowledge that appropriately recognising and rewarding performance is critical to maintaining an engaged and high-performing workforce. Regularly reviewing (and providing opportunities to enhance) our employees’ performance, skills and professional objectives also ensures that our people are empowered to continuously develop and realise their potential. Effectively monitoring and evaluating performance also enables us to ensure that our people’s actions and outcomes are directly aligned with our broader business objectives.
3. Management Approach
Strategic focus areas relating to Human Capital Development include building: An aligned and accountable workforce;
Inclusive, diverse and flexible leaders who are authentic; and Scalable and agile workforce capabilities.
To deliver improvements in these areas, we undertake targeted learning and development initiatives and a rigorous performance and development review process.
Learning and Development
Our learning and development program is structured to help employees as they join the organisation, grow within their roles and lead their teams.
JOIN
Mandatory development activities for new
starters New starter Tools Stockland Orientation Compliance Training Management Fundamentals Leadership Team Induction
GROW
Core Leadership Programs and ToolsLeading@Stockland Coaching for Success Leading Business Outcomes
Building High Performing Teams Accelerate leadership program 360 reports Development activities to support employees in
their current and/or future roles
Job Specific Development Industry Courses General Professional Development Business Systems Technology Skills
LEAD
Join focuses on helping new employees understand our organisation, strategy, values and purpose through orientation programs and compliance training.
Grow covers technical training specific to our job families, industry programs and general professional development such as presentation skills and systems/technology training. We have a number of programs, initiatives and services to support the development of our key job families such as sales, centre management, development management, project management and village management. The purpose is to ensure employees have the knowledge and skills necessary to perform and grow in their roles.
Lead focuses on developing our people’s leadership skills to deliver our strategy, develop their teams and achieve results. Recognising that most adult learning (approximately 70 per cent) happens by doing, we focus on providing our managers with the skills they need to coach and develop their teams. We have a core leadership curriculum in place to support this, complemented by coaching, 360° Leadership Reviews and other assessments and online training solutions.
Given that our front-line managers are busy and geographically dispersed, we complement our core leadership programs with shorter touch-points on key principles. Recognising that basic management skills are one of the primary drivers of improved retention, we seek to deliver short, more accessible video-based learning that reinforces key management skills. Performance and Development
Every year, all employees are required to set clear and measurable objectives to deliver the objectives of their business and the broader Stockland Group. These are collected and tracked via our performance management system.
Stockland’s performance and development process is outlined in figure 1 and described below. Figure 1: Stockland’s performance management process
Performance and Development comprises three key components:
1. Performance Review Process, which measures the employee’s overall performance, including progress against the objectives set at the start of each financial year or at the commencement of a new role. Employee performance is an ongoing focus at Stockland, and this is reflected in the nature and rigour of our performance review process, outlined below:
Objective setting - managers and employees agree objectives and measures of success for the performance year to ensure clarity, alignment and contribution to the delivery of business goals.
Ongoing feedback - managers and employees have regular meetings throughout the year to discuss ongoing performance and progress against employee’s objectives. These meetings provide an opportunity to coach and mentor employees, address development needs and build capability.
Mid-Year Review - a more formal opportunity to review employee progress against agreed objectives. This is not a formal assessment and does not lead to an overall performance rating, but it does provide an important opportunity for employees and managers to document key achievements and development needs and reconfirm objectives for the remainder of the performance period.
Set Objectives Mid-Year Review Annual Review
Ongoing Review, Coaching & Mentoring Development Plan Pe rforma nc e Pl a n January-February July-August May-June
plans, agreed between an employee and manager at the start of each financial year or at the commencement of a new role. The development plan is completed at the same time as setting performance objectives with the view to identifying actions to build their capability to deliver on their objectives and grow their careers. Progress against this development plan is reviewed in conjunction with the key objectives as part of the performance review process outlined above. To complement this review process, employees have at least one formal ‘One Up’ discussion each year with their manager’s manager, which provides them the opportunity to share their career aspirations, explore broader career development options and build a stronger relationship with upper management.
Other programs which support career development at Stockland include:
3in3 Program - a structured professional learning program which involves shadowing an experienced employee in another part of the business. The program is designed to facilitate cross-divisional learning, provide a more
comprehensive understanding of the key functions of different areas and to broaden and develop employee skillsets and awareness of potential career opportunities.
Further education –employees are encouraged to undertake further education at accredited industry or tertiary institutions.
In addition to the standard performance and development processes and initiatives, we also maintain a strong focus on continued employability.
We seek to minimise the impact on those affected by organisational restructures and retrenchments by supporting them in the search for alternative employment, in the first instance within Stockland or externally. Outplacement services are offered to employees whose roles have become redundant, with the type and level of support offered varying in accordance with the individual’s career stage.
Stockland’s outplacement providers are available to employees and provide services such as career goal setting, job search strategy development, access to office support and comprehensive research facilities, group workshop and seminar
programs, small business advisory services and expert advice on money matters. Roles and Responsibilities
Stockland’s leaders and managers are directly responsible for developing and growing the people within their teams. Stockland has a defined set of leadership accountabilities and competencies outlining what is required to coach, develop and build high performing teams.
Our corporate HR function (including our Organisation Development, Learning and Development and Performance and Reward teams), is responsible for supporting the development and growth of our people through the development and delivery of learning and development programs and initiatives and the coordination of Group-wide programs such as talent reviews, succession planning and performance reviews. The Business HR teams dedicated to partnering with each business are responsible for supporting and coaching line managers to secure the right people, manage performance, build capability, grow talent and create the climate to deliver business outcomes.
4. Review and Evaluation
We utilise a range of metrics as proxies for determining the return on investment in human capital development, including employee costs, turnover, leave rates and training days per employee. These metrics are monitored and reported monthly to our Executive Committee and Board to track overall HR effectiveness and are readily available to senior leaders across the organisation through the HR Dashboard on the intranet.
We undertake an annual employee opinion survey from which we derive our employee engagement score. This survey has a professional development and performance review category, which allows us to see how our people perceive their skill development and performance feedback over the year. We also evaluate each of our learning programs that aim to capture learning transfer and adoption.
Our leadership competencies are built into our 360 degree leadership assessments that our senior leaders undertake every 18 months to two years. This data is aggregated annually to provide an overall picture of leadership capability, with the findings guiding development planning and included in the annual culture review.
5. FY15 Update
Learning and Development
Annualised Training Days per Employee*
FY15 FY14 FY13 FY12 FY11 FY10
Training Days per Employee 2.5 3.1 1.5 3.4 5.0 5.9
We had an average of 2.5 training days per employee for FY15, which represents a decrease from the previous year. This is due to an increase in online learning as a medium, rather than face-to-face training, which is less time intensive. In addition, a number of staff conferences (for example, Commercial Property and Residential) have been planned for the second half of this calendar year and therefore aren’t represented in this number, which would have been the case for prior years.
The Stockland Learning Academy was launched towards the end of FY14 and during FY15 we undertook a number of activities to encourage the use of this system with employees, including getting employees to self-enrol in programs such as the remuneration education sessions and annual performance review training.
Building on the success of our Ervin Graf Scholarship program, which employs and develops high performing property students to eventually take on roles in our Research, Business Development and Development teams, we have developed a graduate program for other parts of the business to build the talent pipeline, including Group Operations, CFO Group, Project Management and Strategy and Stakeholder Relations. We have also invested in intern programs, such as Stepping Into (supporting students with a disability) and the Lucy Program (supporting female students) to support our diversity strategy.
One of our key priorities for FY15 was to further the technical training curriculum for our core job families. The purpose of the project is to develop a coordinated strategy for building capability in key job families, ensuring that people within these roles can perform the technical aspects of their role and thereby help Stockland deliver on its objectives and strategy. The four job families identified were Sales, Project Management, Development and Marketing. A capability framework and curriculum was developed for each of these job families throughout the year, with core modules launched for Sales and Marketing. Development and Project Management modules will be launched in FY16.
Case Study: Technical Training curriculum – Residential Sales
Having a skilled and capable sales force is core to achieving results in the Residential business.
Working with the business, Human Resources built a curriculum to support the development of core knowledge and skills needed by our sales team. This includes an online induction module to ensure new staff are educated on Stockland’s approach to sales (including systems and processes) as well as eight core modules for Sales Professionals and Sales Associates to develop skills in areas such as needs analysis and completing the sale. There are also four modules for Sales Managers to help them in their roles of supporting our sales team.
To date, the online module has been launched to all new starters and all residential sales professionals and associates have completed the first two modules of the curriculum, specifically Needs Analysis/Present Solution and Complete the Sale. Our Sales Managers have also completed two modules on Business Writing and Influencing Skills.
Initial feedback on the programs has been very positive, with further business measures of success, such as retention and customer satisfaction, being considered for future modules.
Performance and Development
During FY15 we undertook to review our performance ratings in response to employee feedback through the ‘Our Voice’ survey (see case study in Employee Engagement DMA) with the changes to be implemented in FY16.
FY15 Priorities FY15 Performance FY16 Priorities
Develop technical training curriculum for select job families in FY15
Achieved A capability framework and curriculum has been developed for all four identified job families, with initial modules launched for Sales and Marketing. Modules for Development and Project Management are on track to be launched in FY16.
Develop and conduct training as outlined in the training curriculum for Sales, Development and Project Management.
Plan, recruit and implement a cross-business graduate program for at least 11 graduates.
Review and enhance our Leadership Development Programs to meet the business needs and requirements of leadership for the future.
Develop a more targeted Senior Manager program for piloting, the ‘Stockland Leadership
Experience’.
Target an average of 3-4 training days per employee
Target an average of 3-4 training days per employee
Not Achieved
Our average training days for FY15 was 2.5, which is below our target of 3-4 days. As mentioned above, this is due to an increase in online training vs face-to-face training (which is less time intensive) and the timing of annual staff conferences falling in the latter half of the 2015 calendar year.
7. Appendix A
Complete list of documents in the DMA series:
Enrich Our Value Chain 1. Governance and risk 2. Stakeholder engagement 3. Supply chain management 4. Employee engagement 5. Human capital development 6. Diversity and inclusion 7. Health and safety 8. Human rights Optimise and Innovate 9. Energy and emissions
10. Climate resilience 11. Biodiversity
12. Water management and quality 13. Waste
14. Materials
15. Asset ratings and certification Shape Thriving Communities 16. Community investment
17. Community development 18. Customer engagement 19. Customer safety and security
